New neuroimaging methods for the study of short-term memory

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Short-term memory (STM) provides the scratchpad for our thoughts, and is required for all but the simplest of mental operations. This research program will investigate STM for images and sounds, investigating what exactly the brain encodes, how it does it, and what makes some people have a better memory than others. We will do this across ten experimental studies by testing the ability of volunteers to make fine distinctions, and by using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scanner while they are shown images or sounds and are asked to remember them. Importantly, we will develop three new brain imaging methods. These are all based around the idea of analyzing the data from the scanner in "real time", as it is acquired. Using a large computer, for the first time we will be able to rapidly assess patterns of brain activity, and use this to adapt the rest of the experiment. An analogy is a conversation - typically, to learn something about someone it is more efficient to listen to their answers and adapt your questions accordingly than it is to just use a set of pre-defined questions, as is used in conventional brain imaging. Within five years, the program aims to marry fine temporal information on brain activity from the electrical signals at the surface of the brain, data from the MRI brain scanner, and the sensitivity of real-time adaptive imaging. This will help us learn about short-term memory, and how to help some people improve theirs. The technical developments will have an enormous number of other applications in future.